


Those That Hunger

by RavenDarkwood



Series: Stories of Sparrows and Dragons [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: I'll probably go back and write something that happens between this part and the last part, M/M, Single Father Hanzo, Suicide mention in passing reference twice so beware that, This is mostly a McCree thinking thing, somehow this turned into a sort of character study?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 17:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12939738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenDarkwood/pseuds/RavenDarkwood
Summary: Here’s the thing… Hanzo and him don’t ask each other questions. McCree doesn’t ask why Hanzo takes off during the first half of May (but he knows, he knows only too well), and Hanzo doesn’t ask why McCree knows how to take care of a eight year old and about his neck thing and McCree doesn’t ask Sakura’s real name even though he helped with her ninth birthday party and-... and-... well sure it wasn’t comfortable but for things like them life doesn’t get comfortable, it just gets less worse and safer.





	Those That Hunger

Something lives under Hanzo’s skin. Somethings ancient and eternal, as old as the sky was blue and the lands were wide. Something that twists and shifts whenever Hanzo angers. Something that jolts during thunderstorms, leaving his arm to dance and sing and _beg_ across the whole of his body.

Hanzo talks to anyone rarely, but he always goes quiet when they start moving. Even more so when he knows that McCree knows that they’re movin’.

He sees them out of one of his eyes, like electric veins under Hanzo’s skin. Most of the time they never moved, to the point where if he tried hard enough he could mistake it as part of the tattoo, and not some world shattering being that he didn’t want to understand for fear of realizing some sort of cosmic horror. There were some things he was fine with not knowin’.

McCree knew about the Shimada dragons from Genji. It was a hard to miss the neon dragon coming out of his back and sword, even if it didn’t have a habit of hanging around in an invisible (to everyone but him it seems) smaller form.

He never sees the dragons out of Hanzo’s skin, which has to be weird, right? Genji had lost like half of his body and Raimu… she still left sometimes. She never went far, always hanging at least a wall away from Genji, but she still left.

Hanzo’s dragon never leaves his skin, but he can see Hanzo picking at his own skin, creating little bloody patches when they stay too long in anywhere that wasn’t his arm. He can see Hanzo flinch when the dragon moves like a rattler, ready to strike. And he sees Hanzo making that dragon flinch right back.

And it’s not surprising that Hanzo doesn’t have a good relationship with the something that lives under his skin. Hanzo didn’t have a good relationship with anyone or anything, let alone himself. Any kindness that he possessed was stored away for drought, and only dished out to those he thinks deserves it. Namely his daughter… and Jesse rather recently.

But here’s the thing… Hanzo and him don’t ask each other questions. McCree doesn’t ask why Hanzo takes off during the first half of May (but he knows, he knows only too well), and Hanzo doesn’t ask why McCree knows how to take care of a eight year old and about his neck thing and McCree doesn’t ask Sakura’s real name even though he helped with her ninth birthday party and-... and-... well sure it wasn’t comfortable but for things like them life doesn’t get _comfortable_ , it just gets _less worse_ and _safer_. And for right now less worse was being around people again, so sure he can deal with Hanzo somehow being the most angry and prideful and bitter person, while also hating himself, hating himself so much that he made a deal with his daughter. He can deal with dragging a nine year old across the country if it meant being safe. If it meant that he could get rid of the itch that lived under his skin. If it meant that he was starting to unlearn that habit of talkin’ to himself.

And he can stand those moments where Hanzo looks at him. And it’s just too much. It’s too much and McCree has to look away because he always sees more than he should, even without his eye, when Hanzo _looks at him_ , and McCree knows that Hanzo doesn’t mean to do it, that he’d hide if he could, or unfeel it. That’s he’s drunk or lost in thought or listening to dark voices and seeking the only comfort available to him… or… or trying to let his guard down to tell some shitty black humor joke that he can’t even say because he can’t stop himself from laughing halfway through.

McCree can stand the moments where Sakura takes his hat when she doesn’t think he’ll notice, when she pretends to fall asleep so one of them will carry her. How she somehow manages to be even quieter and melodramatic than Hanzo, how she whispered her real name (“Suzume”) in the dead of night because she was convinced that it would stop him from leaving. How the time that she thought he was leaving she ended up crying so hard she threw up.

What he couldn’t stand was those god damned dragons.

It was just him and Hanzo the first time he summoned them. Him, Hanzo, and a whole lot of people who wanted their heads served up on a silver platter. And at the last moment, without any warning to McCree, Hanzo released his last arrow with two blue dragons.

They were… ancient and terrifying and awesome and McCree really didn’t like to think about the implications that _dragons_ exists had and…

And there were scratches all along their sides. Scars. Scales were jagged and cracked or just missin’ all together in some places. And when they were released they sang and screamed and one shrieked and one grumbled and then roared… and…

_And they devoured._

And then they were comin’ back towards them.

Hanzo didn’t move, so neither did he, until the one that shrieked struck out with teeth and crackling lightning and if he hadn’t jerked Hanzo back and the grumbly one stopped the shrieking one... 

The dragons fought, biting and scratching and clawing, and McCree remembered dog fights when he was a kid, but when he looked at Hanzo... he just looked exhausted. Like the world was trying to squash him and he didn't have the common sense to give into the world.

But they didn’t ask questions, so McCree held back as Hanzo started trying to calm the dragons, the same way that McCree would calm a horse.

It didn’t take long for the shrieking dragon to lean into the arms that Hanzo was offering, the other dragon quickly followed the other’s example, and they stretched their long bodies, encircling Hanzo and nuzzled and spoke in Japanese that echoed and crackled and rolled but was also somehow soft and sad…

The dragons fell into Hanzo, the three becoming almost one again, and Hanzo… Hanzo looked like a dead man walking.

And they didn’t ask questions. It was an unspoken rule, they didn’t ask questions.

“So… Kotaro… is that whole thing… the end of it?”

“No. There is too much pain for it to ever end.” Hanzo walked over to the edge of the catwalk, and McCree _really_ didn’t like the way his toes were hanging over.

And they stood there, for far longer than they should have. Long enough to make McCree wonder if they actually had killed everyone that was after them in a close radius, long enough to make him speak up. “Kotaro we should-”

“There is a man who says that he is my brother.”

He should have been surprised, but he wasn't. The Genji he knew wasn't like that, but eventually this whole thing had to come to head. Looks like Hanzo survived that. Seeing as they were probably going nowhere fast McCree pulled out one of his cigarillos. “Yeah? He still livin’?”

“Clint. McCree.” McCree jerked his head up, his lighting of a match paused for this now. Hanzo’s head was turned slightly towards him, but not enough for McCree to actually get a read on his face. “Will you tell me about Overwatch?”

In the distance thunder roared and rumbled. Lightning shrieked and striked.

**Author's Note:**

> I somehow managed to write both of the parts rather quick? The next part will probably have some actual dialogue in it though, and be less introspection? Though with Genji who knows. I'll probably write something to go in between the first and the second parts in the future.


End file.
